Driver speeds wrong way down Eastex Freeway for 5 miles

A driver outstripped police cars early Thursday morning while speeding the wrong direction down the Eastex Freeway, police said.

Kingwood resident Michael Garcia, 23, nearly collided with the driver around 1 a.m. He and his mother were headed northbound on the highway out of downtown when the driver came barreling down the wrong direction, in the lane closest to the median.

Garcia's mother slammed on the breaks. Cars around her did too. Drivers started honking.

"Oh my God, somebody is driving backwards down the highway," she said.

Cars swerved to the right to avoid the car. The driver miraculously avoided a head-on collision, traveling more than five miles in total southbound toward downtown Houston on the highway's northbound lanes.

"That kind of person is going to kill somebody, or they're going to kill an entire family," Garcia said in an interview with the Chronicle. It isn't the first time he's seen this kind of driving in Houston, Garcia added.

"It's deeply concerning, and the city needs to address that issue."

The car had been on the road since about 12:45 a.m., as the driver zoomed by the East Crosstimbers Street exit, said John Cannon, spokesman for the Houston Police Department.

Cameras show her dodging other vehicles and zooming past patrol cars, inside of which police officers flashed their spotlights in a fruitless attempt to get the driver's attention, according to television reports.

"By the time [police officers] got to a particular location, she had already passed that," Cannon said.

Eyewitnesses said the driver was a woman, but police have not confirmed that at this time.

The driver also somehow evaded arrest, making it to the elevated portion of the freeway, near the George R. Brown Convention Center.

There, officers lost sight of the driver when the motorist likely veered onto an Interstate 45 entrance ramp to exit U.S. 59.